Northern delights of the North

Heading to Paihia on with the Naked Bus company, it was cheaper to break the journey up by doing two journeys and having 5 hours in Auckland.  We arrived in Auckland at 12 noon and decided with the time we had spare, we'd go to watch the Inbetweeners at the cinema.  We walked to the cinema to purchase the tickets in advance of the 2.45pm showing, and then wandered back along Queen's Street to have some lunch in our favourite food court.

After lunch, a spot of coffee and free internet, we whiled a way a bit of time on our computers before walking up back up to the other end of Queens Street to the cinema, joking with each other that for once we would be early for the
cinema, as the 2 or 3 times we'd been before we'd always managed to be late!  We walked through the foyer, heading for the screen when I happened to glance up at the main screen showing the times, only to see that the Inbetweeners
start time for 2.45pm wasn't there, it only had the next showing of 6pm.  I glanced at my watched and couldn't believe my eyes......we had totally missed an hour and it was nearly 3.45pm!!  We were gobsmacked, and for a couple of minutes were speachless.  How could we have missed a whole hour?  And we'd only just been so proud that for once we were early for something!

We walked up to the lady behind the counter with our tickets and explained we were there for the 2.45pm showing of the Inbetweeners, she looked at her watch bemused, so we explained that we were idiots, and she saw the funny
side and gave us tickets for when we were next in Auckland, which was the next Wednesday, so at least we didn't lose our money!

So it was back on the bus, and the second leg of the jouney that day, and we ended up in Paihia about 9pm that evening.  This time we were staying at a YHA, and when we arrived in Paihia, we walked around the block and found nothing of note, just a load of kids on street corners, and leering lads hanging out of dodgy old bangers.  We had a snack and went to our room, which was ok, except for the cockroach that greeted us, and the fact that the walls were paper thin.  The rooms were located outside, we were on the top floor, and the front of the rooms were glass from floor to ceiling with sliding doors.  We fell asleep, but were soon rudely awoken by our neighbours, a bunch of 20 men staying at our hostel who were there on a fishing trip.  They were total rednecks, grunting at each other incoherently, some were fighting, some were threatening to kill each other and this neolithical behaviour continued into the wee small hours.  Eventually they went to sleep, but before you could say "Bob's yer uncle", they were up at 6am getting ready for their day at sea.  They were so fricking loud, but what was so annoying was they were so chirpy!  They had absolutely no consideration for anyone else staying at the hostel, and continued making noise for an hour before they left.  And when I say making noise, I mean grunting and talking at the tops of their voices, although I couldn't make out a word they 
were saying, except, "Yeah Bro, Yeah Bro.."

Before going out for the day, I spoke to the guy at reception and asked how long the guys were staying as they were so loud, and he replied they were here for a fishing trip and were staying one more night.  He said he'd have a word with them, but I knew he wouldn't as he was so timid, he was hardly going to square up to 20 neandathal men.

Aoife and I walked into Paihia, and walked in the opposite direction to the night before, and to our surprise the place turned out to be lovely.  A cruise ship was in town and there was a great buzz, so we wandered around and booked our tours for the next two days and went to the Treaty House for a bit of culture.

Treaty House

Inside the Treaty House

Irish Rose

Aoife and a Kauri tree trunk

Mauri traditional long boats

Carving inside a meeting house

Meeting house

Pukeko - my favourite bird in NZ

The evening was spend avoiding our idiot neighbours who had returned with their catch and were proudly having their photos taken with their scaley friends, before cooking the fish, and washing it down with copius amounts of "piss"
and turning their already annoying voices up an octave or two.  There was a repeat of the night before, this time without any death threats, and they finally fell asleep in the early hours, so for the rest of the night we heard loud snoring vibrating through our walls.  At least they were going home in the morning!  

The alarm went off early and we waited outside to be picked up by a 'Dune Rider', our truck/coach for the day.  Around the corner it came, all shiny and new, with a truck head connected to a converted truck coach, rather like what we had just come half way around the world in, but shiny new and less appeal.

Dune Rider

We collected the rest of the day trippers and began our journey north, to Cape Reinga and the very tip of New Zealand.

First stop of the day was a giant kauri tree buried forest.  These Kauri trees are absolutely massive, the trunks are just monsters.  The trees in this forest were all buried thousands of years ago and are being unearthed, still
intact and are being used to build houses and furniture now.

Kauri trunk in the buried forest

Next stop was Cape Reinga, where a lighthouse marks the very North of New Zealand, and where the Tasman sea meets the Pacific.  

Light house at Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga

After a lunch stop on a deserted beach, well as deserted as you could get with a coach load of tourists and one lonely seal basking at the waters edge, we drove to to famous sand dunes by Ninety Mile Beach.  We all grabbed a body board and made our way up the steep sand dune, huffing and puffing, one step up, two steps down, two steps up, four steps down.  Eventually we were all at the top, and one by one we flung ourselves onto the boards and zipped down the dune!  Great fun.  Although a ski lift would have been handy!

Weeeeeeee!!!

After an adrenaline fix, we drove along Ninety Mile Beach, and the actual beach is part of the highway, so we had great views out to sea.  We stopped to dip our toes into the freeing cold Tasman Sea, before heading back to Pahia, stopping
off for fish and chips on the way home.

Ninety mile beach

Aoife dipping her toes

Back at the YHA, the apes had gone home and we had a relaxing evening with no-one waking us in the night, and were once again up early for another trip, this time on the sea.

We boarded the boat, ready for the morning's activity, and it was great to see the captain and the crew were all ladies.  We headed from Paihia to Russell to pick up some more passengers, then headed out into open sea, where it became choppy and the boat was rising and falling and crashing back to the ocean with a bang.  This is how I like it, a bit of action, but most of the passengers on board went white/green and plenty of shades inbetween, and sick bags were being handed out to everyone.  We managed to see a couple of dolphins that were swimming by the bow of our boat, so we stopped and watched them for about thirty seconds before a boat load of people nearby who were there to swim with the dolphins, all jumped in, very ungracefully with snorkells and flippers on, and with all the commotion the dolphins scarpered, never to be seen again.

They jumped in and the dolphins legged it

We sailed to the famous 'hole in the rock', a huge rock out to sea with a hole in the middle, usually the boat would go through it but as the waters were so choppy we couldn't, so it was then time to head back to Russell and Paihia.

Hole in the rock

Aoife and I decided to get off at Russell and have a look around and then get a ferry back to Paihia later.

We went to Russell museum and learnt that back in the old days it was a lawless town, where all the sailors used to stop off after months at sea for supplies, entertainment and women.  It was called 'The hellhole of the Pacific', but
now is just a lovely sleepy small town.  I wonder where the 'hellhole of the Atlantic was?'

Back at the YHA, we met a lovely guy Scottish called Keith, he had been on a two week recce patrol, driving all over the North Island to see where he and his family back in Scotland should move to next year.  He asked us if we would
like to get a lift with him to Auckland,  and stop off the night the next day in Whangarei. Aoife and I decided that would be great, so the next day, we ditched the Naked bus for Keith and his little hire car, and drove the hour or so the Whangarei and visited the waterfall there which was beautiful, even in the rain.  We headed into town in the afternoon, and as it was the Melbourne cup, we all put a bet on, but shouldn't have bothered.  We went into the local Irish pub in town, and behind the bar was one of Aoife's school friends that she hadn't seen since she was twelve!

Aoife and Keith

Me at the waterfall

The next morning, we were Auckland bound, but to make a day of it we drove to some great bays and helped Keith scope out some potential new home towns.

Me at the yha in Whangarei

Keith in the cold sea

Our apartment

Then all too soon we were coming over the Auckland Harbour Bridge, a reminder of what was to come the next day as we were flinging ourselves off that very bridge in the morning.  Keith dropped us off at our apartment that we were
staying in for the next two nights, and we got ready to go to the cinema to watch the Inbetweeners which we happily made it in time for.  Then it was time to get psyched up for our leap of faith.......................

New Zealand adventures continue....Naked Buses - the new adrenaline ride

I left my last blog saying that little did we know we were about to dice with death, and I wasn't joking.

We said our fairwells to the Young's in Napier and boarded our bus, called the 'Naked Bus' to Tauronga.  The 'Naked Bus' has conotiations of a company run by half naked bus drivers that take you the length and bredth of the country, in
reality the bus drivers are over and above the pension age and we'd rather see them keep their clothes on, thanks very much.

A Naked bus

The first leg of our jouney from Napier was with a driver who took us to Rotorua via Taupo, so we got to see the same scenic route that we saw on the way to Napier.  Anyway, after a short break we boarded another bus with a different
driver, an extremely large guy and my immediate thought was 'prime victim of a heart attack.'  We took our seats, the bus was half empty so we took two seats each opposite each other and this time at the front as we had spent most of our bus journeys at the back, next to the lavvy.

About half an hour into the journey I could see the driver grabbing his chest and grimacing - I had a great view of him where I was sitting in his rear view mirror.  The grimacing soon turned to gentle moaning and leaning on the steering wheel as we were driving.  All I could think of was my immediate thought of him when I first saw him about heart attacks and prayed that I wasn't having some kind of premanition.  Then he grabbed a giant sized bottle of Gaviscon and proceeded to guzzle half of it before rubbing his belly and groaning.  I started going over in my head what I'd learned in my CPR courses and thinking how many breathes to compressions, and what was the emergency number in this country, when he suddenly stopped the bus.  Most people behind were completely oblivious to what was happening and as I looked over at Aoife I could see she knew what what going on and we gave each other knowing looks.  The driver was searching in his bag, groaning all the time and found what he was looking for, his pills.  He scoffed a few down and by this stage more people in the back were gaining his attention, which he saw, and prompty told us not to worry, they were only headache pills he was popping!!!

Well I was starting to worry and as he set off again, I slipped my seatbelt on and couldn't take my eyes off the driver. He then decided he'd make a phone call and called his boss saying he wasn't feeling great and may not be able to
make the next part of the journey which was to continue on to Auckland.  He continually groaned and rubbed his chest and I did not relax the whole time!  After another ten minutes, he called his boss again and said he really
wasn't well, he had chest pains, stomach pains, acid reflux, a headache, sweating profusely, and there was no way he could continue the journey and they would have to find a relief driver asap.  By this time Aoife and I were shitting it, I thought he was going to cark it at any point.

We could see signs to Tauranga and knew we were close, then all of a sudden he's heading in another direction to pick up an old biddy from another stop.  He gets off and with all his strength puts her suitcase in the hold under the bus,
and from where I was sitting I could see him trying to get himself together, leaning over and gasping to get his breath and saying 'oh dear, oh dear' to himself.  He gets back on the bus and necks a whole bottle of water, more gaviscon and wipes his sweaty brow.  The biddy decides to sit behind him, and as he is driving off, keeps distacting him asking him what's wrong and he replies, "heart burn" to which she starts waffling on and asking him if he wants a dry bun and giving him old remedies.  We were all looking at each other thinking he just needs to concentrate on the fricking road ahead! Not gas to this old lady.  Eventually she shuts up and ten minutes later he seemed to have recovered and was on the phone to his boss saying he could complete the journey to Auckland!!  Good luck to all on board I say, that ride was scarier than a sky dive.

We arrived in Tauranga in one piece and gave our best wishes to the driver, and headed to our backpackers, wondering what reception we would receive there, and who we would be sharing our 4 bed dorm with.

Well, the clientelle was something to be desired, the dregs of society all in one place - great.  We were shown to our dorm, sorry, window-less cell, and walked into a stinking flea pit.  Because the room had no window, you can imagine the
stench eminating.  We were greeted, no sorry again, ignored by our fellow roomate, a German girl who we later found out was working in Taurongo on one of the nearby asparagus farms.

We dumped our bags and went into Tauronga which happens to be a lovely town with a great atmoshphere.  We found a pub and joined a couple of girls to do the weekly pub quiz which seemed to be extremely popular, all the tables were
reserved and some groups had ten or more people in them.  So it was surprising to see that after 5 rounds, our little team of 4 girls were joint first, thanks to the input of Aoife and the round on New Zealand affairs, but we did ourselves proud coming somewhere in the middle of the board.

After the pub, it was back to the stinking cell where we met our other cell mate, another German girl.  It was lights out, and what seemed like seconds later, lights on as the asparagus farm worker was up at 5.45am and flashing her torch
around whilst rustling plastic bags and getting ready for work.  Next it was German girl number 2's turn and this time she turned the main light on screeching "I am checking out, I must have the light on."  Jeez, at least in prison no ones getting up for work at a god awful hour or checking out.

The second day in Tauronga was spent legging it to Mount Maunganui, and when I say legging it I mean walking but Aoife's style of walking - extremely fast.  We refreshed ourselves in the pub before reaching the base of the mount. 
We wanted to go up, but only seemed to find the base track, so we walked around that and saw the workers helping out with the oil spill and clearing up clothes and other items washed onto the shore from the stricken tanker out to
sea.  There were also a team of rugby players out training for the afternoon, so we had a great view of the coast and also the topless runners.

After walking the base of the mount we found the route up, so proceed walking the 4x4 track up, and said we would come down via the steps.  People we met coming down near the bottom of the mount kept saying "good luck" and
we were perplexed at what they meant, it was only a hill!  When we were half way up we realised how steep it was, and were practically on our hands and knees by the top.  Although it was worth it, there was a fabulous view.

After the climb up Mount Maunganui, we ate fish and chips, or "fush and chups" as the Kiwi's say and went to the cinema to see "One Day", a book a few of us had read whilst on the truck.

Climbing the Mount, a quick stop to catch  the breath and take a shot of the cute lamb

at the top of the Mount

The View from Mount Maunganui, with the cruise ship in the distance that we bumped into 2 more times

Then it was back once again for a final night in our cell, and when we arrived the German girl was in bed and the other bed obviously had a new occupant but who we would never know, as she came to bed by torch light and did the obligatory rustling of plastic bags before bed.  Then we were up at the crack of dawn, but not as early as the German asparagus worker, and packed and left our digs without even knowing who was sleeping in the next bed.

So, once again we lugged our stuff to to bus station and boarded a Naked Bus, ready for the long drive up north to Paihia.

Adventures In New Zealand, Part One

Leaving everyone in Singapore was very sad, but onwards we must go, and at least I had Aoife to keep me company.  Some of us were soon to be travelling alone, and after not being alone at all for the past six months, that was a strange feeling.

So, it was off to Singapore airport where we were headed to Auckland, New Zealand for three weeks of travelling around the North Island before I headed off and Aoife tried to find some work in the South Island.

We boarded the plane which was to to be our bed for the next ten hours, only to hear a commotion in the next carriage in front with a man shouting, "Let me go to the toilet, you B******S!! I'm never flying Jet Star or Quantas again".  
This went on for a few minutes with everyone feeling very uncomfortable and wondering what was happening.  We thought that he would be removed from the plane and we would be delayed with take off, but with that we started taxi-ing to
the runway and with that we were in the air and quick as you like the seat belt signs were switched off, but the guy didn't leg it to the toilet as we all thought he would, instead all the air stewards gathered around his seat, and it turns out he had an accident from both ends and there was a lot of clearing up to do.  Luckily for the passengers seated near him, the flight was half empty so they all moved back to our carriage to get away from the smell.   The Captain even had to
come out and talk to the passenger who was moved elsewhere on the plane (I think business class) and the Captain then spent the next 20 minutes chatting with disgruntled passengers before heading back to the cock pit. With that, everyone settled down and started wondering what to have for their evening meal and what to drink, when I read that the flight we were on was a card only payment flight.  This would be ok in normal circumstances, but I had no cards after being robbed in Thailand and Aoife's cards weren't working as she had only two hours before tried to pay for her out-bound flight from New Zealand and her cards were declined so she paid cash.   I informed the air strewardess of our plight and my robbery etc and she handed us one bottle of water "to share" for the ten hour flight!  We were in for a long night.  There were only a few tv screens dotted around the plane and we weren't given earphones and it was bloody freezing and we had to pay for blankets which obviously we couldn't.  Aoife ended up ripping the inflight magazine to shreds and stuffed it under her clothes for extra warmth!  Let me just say it was a long night, and I was glad to get off that plane!  To top it off Aoife broke her sunglasses. We've stopped counting the number of sunglasses casualties there have been since the start, but let's just say you need at least two pairs of hands to count them all.


We stayed in Auckland for the next few nights  and worked out our plan of action.  We met up with Aoife's friends from Dublin who had just emigrated to Auckland a month before and we stayed with Serafine, Dan and little Robyn for our last two nights in Auckland before we headed on a bus to Rotorua.

Aoife, me, Dan, Serafine, Penny, John and little Robyn on the 'K' Road

Aoife with a cute camper van

Aoife and Serafine

On our last night in Auckland, Aoife and I wandered down to the Cloud fan Zone to watch the rugby and to soak up the atmosphere.  We got a beer and within a few minutes were approached by a South African girl who was flogging tickets for the match which was due to start in a few hours.  Immediately we said "no" as we didn't really have that much interest in a Wales versus France match, but then we both thought about it and changed our minds whipping the tickets from her grasp and paying the money.  It's not everyday you get to a semi final match at the Rugby World Cup for a bargain price.  So off we toddled and got a bus to Eden Park where we took our seats and it promptly started to rain, we were not under cover so got completely drenched.  Aoife started to wonder why
the hell she was there, but as soon as the players came out, the rain stopped and the atmosphere took over.  The match didn't go our way and France won, but it was a great night, topped off by us heading to the pub and having drinks with ex All Black Murray Mexted.  So it was late to bed and up early to catch the bus to Rotorua..........

France and Wales!

With Murray Mexted

Now I've been to Rotorua before, but nothing prepares you for the stink that eminates from that place, rotten eggs, and lots of them.  We stayed in a backpackers, and the welcome from fellow backpackers was about as warm as that Jet Star flight from Singapore, pretty icy.

We wondered around the town and I held my nose a lot. It's a fascinating place to visit, where the earths crust is so thin and everywhere you go there are exploding mud pools or hot sulphurous steam spewing from the ground.

What a stench

Tradtional Maori meeting house

My lovely mum's name on the side of a random building

We also visited the Maori Thermal village of Whakarewarewa, a village that is situated on geothermal activity and bubbling hot pools around the houses.  The villagers still live there now, and there is no water in the houses so the everyone comes down to the communal bathing area to wash in the hot pools before the public arrive at 7.30am and after they leave around 8pm, otherwise we'd all get a good eyeful!

It was an interesting place to visit, and for lunch we ate sweetcorn cooked in the hot pools outside, and saw traditional Maori dancing and the Haka performed.

Maori carving on top of the meeting house

Bell retrieved from the buried village from a volcanic eruption

Hot pools where our sweetcorn was cooked

communal baths

me with our guide demonstrating traditional weaving

Maori show

Aoife and I

Outside the village

Pretty tree

Geothermal activity

Next on our hit list of places to visit was Taupo, and a short bus ride from Rotorua found us in Taupo late afternoon.

We arrived at our backpackers and the welcome was a lot warmer, it was a fun place to stay with a cheap bar and offered chilli and rice every evening at a reasonable price.

When I was last in Taupo, I did a sky dive over the lake, this time the adrenaline sport of choice was a jet boat along the Waitako River.  Aoife and I grabbed the best seats at the front, and away we went at high speed, twisting and turning along the rapids, and spinning 180 degrees at high speed.  We were going so fast, at one point I thought I had lost all my eyelashes!! It certainly got the heart beat raised, but it was over all too soon.

Getting rigged up

Getting soaked!

The Waitako river, and the spot where Taupo bungy takes place

Next stop after Taupo was Napier, and Colin and Wendy's!!  We were excited to see them and had missed them since leaving them in Singapore.

So it was on another bus to Napier, and we were greeted by Colin and Wendy as we got off the bus.  We headed to Janelle and Kiel's house, their daughter and son in law, and we stayed with them as Colin and Wendy's house was being decorated after being let out whilst they'd been away.

Aoife and I did an art deco tour of Napier, and saw all the post earthquake buildings that had been erected around the art deco era.  The next day Colin was running a wine tour, so we were lucky enough to go along and sample all the
wines from four different wineries around the Hawke's Bay region.  It was great fun and we were a little tipsy by the end of the afternoon, and the party continued into the evening as it was the Rugby World Cup final, and we all know the outcome of that, so there was a great evening at Janelle and Kiel's house that night.

Art Deco

Aoife and some random guy on our tour - Aoife was nosing at some interior art deco

Me in Napier with a statue

The Irish girl by the Irish pub

Me outside the first winery of the day......

Wine barrels

The girls on tour, 3rd winery of the day, cheers!

At the end of the day, still standing

View out to sea from Napier

Colin, Kiel, Janelle, Wendy and Aoife

Napier was a lot of fun with great food, wine and fantastic hosts.  We were spoilt, and it was hard to leave there after five nights, but we had to leave, so it was another farewell to fellow Calysoites once more, and then we hit the road
again.  This time to Tauranga, and little did we know we would be dicing with death!!